4. If being unable to burn logs into charcoal in a furnace still bothers you after reading the alternatives above, you can find "disabledrecipes" in GregTech/Recipes.cfg and change "B:wood2charcoalsmelting_true=true" to "B:wood2charcoalsmelting_true=false"
That's what I did, but I wanted to know if there was another, intended solution. When trying out a new mod I like to see how the designer imagined it working before altering it.
I know how Coke Ovens work. It's true that you don't need anything other than a furnace, wood, and clay to make a Railcraft coke oven, but shouldn't there be a solution to torches that doesn't depend on another mod? Or is Railcraft and intended requirement, like Industrial Craft 2?
I've read about the Gregtech vein generation, but haven't had extensive experience with it yet. Are you saying you can expect to see coal veins exposed and visible pretty much all the time, provided you check out biomes like Extreme Hills?